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In this article I’d like to acquaint you with some great slide licks I like to play in open A tuning. These riffs and runs are super versatile – you can use them to hop up your own blues pieces, employ them as solos in a classic blues song or even just entertain yourself with them on a back porch in the middle of a scorching heat wave.

These videos and audio files are bonus content related to the March 2015 issue of Guitar World. For the full range of interviews, features, tabs and more, pick up the new issue on newsstands now or at the Guitar World Online Store.

This kind of thing reminds me of a Johnny "Guitar" Watson move. It also helps get fingers accustomed to sliding very quickly. And this kind of sliding technique might help you see connections on the fretboard while giving you an alternative to standard blues solos.

This lesson takes the same ideas discussed in my last lesson, "Increase Left-Hand Strength and Produce Great-Sounding Sequences,” and applies them to the diatonic major and minor three-note-per-string scales. It will help you get the seven positions of the major scale memorized, increase your left-hand strength, solidify your alternate picking and deliver some great-sounding sequences.

These videos and audio files are bonus content related to the March 2015 issue of Guitar World. For the full range of interviews, features, tabs and more, pick up the new issue on newsstands now or at the Guitar World Online Store.

The most fundamental challenge in fast picking is also the easiest to spot from halfway across the room: the motion mechanic. To play notes with a pick, we need a way of moving it back and forth in the classic alternating down-up picking sequence. Historically, this movement, or motion mechanic, has been the most visible and most commonly discussed component of picking technique.

These videos and audio files are bonus content related to the March 2015 issue of Guitar World. For the full range of interviews, features, tabs and more, pick up the new issue on newsstands now or at the Guitar World Online Store.